@part(horsemen, root = "/mit/abstract/Characters/sheet.format")

@subsection(The Horsemen)

Ah, for the good old days, when you were young and carefree
adventurers with nary a care in the world!  Funny, how they didn't
seem that way then.  

You are one of the survivors of the Horsemen, a famous band of
adventurers who were active about three decades ago (gods, has it been
that long?).  The original band were the Four Horsemen of the
Apocalypse (melodramatic, perhaps, but they were youngsters at the
time...): Arriz the wizard, Nehemiah Abraam the swordsmaster,
Leranearian Ephraim the fighter-priest (though he never liked that
title, for reasons that remain unclear) and the irrepressable Cat,
whose thieving skills were unsurpassed.

'Course, as the group grew, you dropped the "Four" and the Apocalypse
bit.  You came to be known as the Horsemen, even if none of you ever
did ride.  You were joined by the wizard Kalerege, Arriz's rival for
years; Zephaniah Reuben and Zanannim Benjamin, professional soldiers
and fighters without equal; and the Raven, a healer with unusual
alchemical and magical skills.  The last to join, Raven was perhaps
the most enigmatic of your crew, an Eastern witch who teamed up with
your band in search of the traitor Soeth.

Soeth had tried to hook up with your outfit a few years before the
incident at the Eastern border, but he never made the grade.  It was
rather a coincidence that when Mandrake Sweetwater and his daughter
Dreamer Sweetwater were exiled into the Realm, Soeth would be the
commander of the troop of soldiers that was closest to the area, but
@i(someone) had to be.  Unfortunately, although you six (Benjamin was,
at the time, serving as the head of the Ministry for Outland Affairs)
were in the area and heard the same rumours of "alien monsters," Soeth
got to the family of exiles before you did, and was therefore the
first Realm citizen to learn of the existence of the Clanlands.

Of course, you were unaware of that when you arrived at the village,
to discover that Mandrake and Dreamer had disappeared.  (Raven later
explained that Dreamer was her "family name," and her real name was
Mint -- you could understand why she didn't use it.)  Shortly
thereafter, though, you met Raven, another "alien monster" who had
willingly left the boundaries of her land to track down an outsider
who had betrayed her family and stolen an artifact of great power.
You decided to take her to Benjamin, who was the closest thing the
Realm had to an official in charge of foreign affairs at the time, and
in short order she was telling her story to the King.

It was about then that Soeth returned to the Capitol City.  Looking
back on it, it should have been obvious that his entire story of
having been attacked by "Eastern devils" who slaughtered his troops
was entirely fabricated, probably to keep anyone from realizing that
@i(he) had slaughtered them to remove any witnesses to his attempted
betrayal.  At the time, though, things were moving too quickly, and
King Rashid ordered Raven imprisoned.

The Cat wasn't having any of that, though.  He had fallen for the girl
in a big way, and helped her escape, in the process convincing all of
you that Soeth was lying.  Kalerege suggested it might be time to
vanish for a while, and as it happens, there was a quest he had been
itching to go on, searching for an artifact called the Orb of
Kryssonyx...

Mistake.  Serious mistake.  The seven of you spent a year searching
through the Crystal Mountains in search of that Orb, finally
discovering it protected by a great Worm, which you dispatched.  
That was the last any of you saw of Kalerege, and the last you heard
of him until a few weeks ago.  When the Worm was defeated, he siezed
the Orb and vanished.  The rest of you returned to the civilized parts
of the Realm, to discover chaos -- in your absence, Soeth had somehow
managed to trigger an international war over Raven's disappearance and
the death of his troops.  In the meantime, Benjamin had been branded a
traitor to the Realm, having disappeared altogether and last seen
consorting with a band of Eastern soldiers.  Gods, leave them alone
for a year and they're out of control!!!

You managed to set things aright by bringing Raven to the King, and
having her truth-read.  By comparing stories you pieced together what
Soeth had been up to, King Rashid declared the war over, and the
Horsemen set out to find Soeth and Benjamin.

Well, you found Soeth in short order.  While you were bringing him
back, however, something went crazy -- Arriz sensed some kind of
disturbance in the balance of white and black magic, and Ephraim went
absolutely nuts, and in the confusion a demon of some kind appeared to
take Soeth.  Even weakened as he was, Ephraim managed to dispel the
creature, but Soeth took the opportunity to escape.  You haven't heard
from him since.

Shortly after that incident, Ephraim took a leave of absence from
adventuring, as did Arriz, to research some obscure metaphysical
phenomena that they never really explained.  Rueben and Abraam decided
to follow suit to raise families, and the rest of you sort of
disbanded.  

Since then, you've kept in some touch.  The Cat and Raven remained an
item, but vanished mysteriously some eleven years ago and haven't been
heard from since.  The rest of you settled into rather ordinary lives
as soldiers, mages, or merchants -- and Benjamin and Kalerege remained
unfindable until very recently, under very odd circumstances.

When the Eastern War began, you were all quite upset -- but there
wasn't much you could do about it.  Unlike the first war, this one was
started by the madness of the people in charge, and they have the
right to do that ... Nevertheless, you were thrilled when COERCE
announced that the leaders of the two nations had agreed to meet for a
peace summit.  You, along with the rest of the world, were stunned
when they announced that the summit would be held on the mythical
Castle in the Sky, a magical locale unseen by mortal eyes in
centuries.  You were even more flabbergasted when you discovered
the identity of the Castle's keeper:  somehow, Kalerege had taken up
residence there when he disappeared with the Orb.  The worst shock of
all, however, was receiving invitations to a reunion of the Horsemen
on "Castle Kalerege."  The invitations were signed not by the mage,
but by his manservant Benjamin.

There was no way you could refuse an invitation with that kind of
mystery attached, so here you all are.  Perhaps this week you'll be
able to resolve some unfinished loose ends -- Soeth's fate, Kalerege's
ascension, the "treason" of Zannanim Benjamin, the disappearance of
Raven and the Cat, and what exactly @i(happened) the night that Soeth
escaped.  In any case, however, it will be worth it just to see each
other -- who knows?  Perhaps, with the chaos that has erupted on the
Castle these last two days, the Horsemen will have the chance to ride
again!